zero to one

a number prompt

wherein “zero” is irreversibly in love and “one” is an obnoxious, class-A bitch

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You’re just a fucking placeholder to me.

Day in, day out, the rush of traffic pounds pounds pounds into my brain like an endless fleet of soldiers programmed to crystallize my thoughts into dust. Woosh. Blow them away for me; I hate these thoughts anyway—the sorts that control into which cup I pour my tea, the sorts that determine which shirt I am and am not allowed to wear, the sorts that remind me of him and of why I sit here useless and tired and incomplete.

I’m missing something, perhaps a ball shaped into the confines of zero, small and seemingly irrelevant but bothersome. It irked me when I first realized that his departure was not some immediately tragic happenstance, that of reaching into a chest and withdrawing with a veiny heart, no, no, it wasn’t. It was like he bit off a piece of my skin, no, a fiber of my skin, and unraveled me millimeter by millimeter. He’s still unraveling.

I needed a Band-Aid and you were it. You are it. I just need you to hold me together until he finishes up with me and I can stitch myself back up. I don’t mean to be a class-one bitch—actually, I do mean to. I need the world to realize that the promises our lovers make are truly written in the stars but as constant reminders of the distance (and with distance, we shall forget about fulfillment); I need the world to realize that the kisses our lovers leave on our foreheads are marks of the measly trades they make with the devil (and we sell our souls without knowing the price); that there is nothing and there is everything, and in between, there are all the “you and me”s falling short.

…

“Please,” you text for the umpteenth time.

I never replied; why start now? We’re all just fucking placeholders anyway.

birds foretell

I dream of a reality
Far-fetched and mad
Of a land of birds
That sing the names of the dead

Like a chant, repetitive
To remind the world
Of how this earth
Can summon weeds to wind around
Your proud, proud feet

And pull you straight down
Into molten lava and core
Let’s watch each other burn, too
In the seas of death and gore

And so in my dreams,
I listen to the birds
Intently, I strain to hear my name
And hope it’s not among their words

what do you think of me?

I just want to know what you think of me.

Every time I raise my hand and greet you,—“good morning!”—is your smile a result of some unknown force that just stretches your lips without volition? The way your eyes crinkle by the sides when I fumble around with my clothes, yes, they really do; is it because you think I’m endearing? Do my hugs give you the jitters; especially when I wind my far-reaching arms around your neck and squeeze my short myself to you, so close, (you’re so tall), as if I’m just dying to crawl inside you and lay there, head resting on heart, listening to whatever you’re willing to give me?

Every time I laugh at you and you laugh at me, do you think it’s the most fun you’ve ever had? What about when you lie with me? Just there on the peaceful grass under the peaceful sky with our hands peacefully intertwined like the present and the future–do you think that in this present, I am your future?

I don’t like what you’ve done to me. You’ve reduced me to a pool of simplicity and you’ve stripped me of any articulacy that I may have had. Give me back my clothes. I need them to hide behind an extra layer of protection from the already-standing walls around who I am really am.

You don’t know me; how fair is it that I ask what you think of me? Is it foolish of me to ask you, to assume of you the things I think with you, for you, about you? Foolish, it is not—it is wrong of me to ask that of you when you obviously have your set of priorities. And I’m not in your top ten. So, who am I to you?

Maybe I’m someone; maybe I’m no one. Does it matter, though? All that matters to me right now is the way your hand feels against my hand and how your heat permeates my cold, dead skin. I think that my head fits perfectly on the masculine curvature of your body—I can hear your heart: strong, unlike mine. When you’re laughing, guffawing, almost dying on the floor because of me, I think that I can make you happy and I like that. I love that. I love to see you happy; I love that I make you happy. And when we just look into each others’ eyes, do you think I see your soul? Because I don’t. But I think that your deep blue pools are Neptune while mine are Venus, and like these two gods, we could bring planets and universes together with our mere existence. As long as we coexist and I exist in you.

I still don’t know what you think of me; will I ever? I want to know. There is no doubt that my mind is guarded and my terror of rejection is plenary—plenary and heavy and I cannot think of such negativity when I’m writing about you–but I still want to know.

Because from the moment my lashes lift from cheeks, I know that I think you’re amazing.

find me please

honestly, i don’t know where i am.

am i within the chambers of asininity and without the same chambers that haunt me? fleeting, floating, (stop moving), the ghosts of my past fasten themselves placidly onto the outlines of my future. i reach out often enough to stop them; why do i even try? why do i try when their spirits escape my grasp and leave only wisps of black evil that proliferate in my shaking hand? and with me reaching out, the outer reaches for me: “pass me the dip”, “do you think he likes me”, “we have mass to attend; it’s sunday”. if only i could extricate myself from the most foolish and typical and inutile to me–but it would only further make me question. where am i?

am i beyond the alcoholic skies that taste of raspberry? i’d like to get drunk on sweet wine and sweeter tequila, and on the words written in sharpie on the wall of this big, blue canvas. with each tip of my glass, i would bask in the brilliance happiness could bring, no matter how artificially created this stupor is. and with my left hand, i would write green suns and purple seas and this world will appear just as i please and smile at the absolute flimflam of my thoughts. what would i have left to posterity–green suns and purple seas? crazy. just crazy. (crazy stupid idiotic moron fuckinguselesspieceofshit NO STOP LET GO OF ME) and i realize that this has all been nothing, nothing at all, for how would i be up in the free, weightless clouds when the shackles around my ankles are heavy with the unrelenting weight of this voice and his voice?

or am i—i don’t know. i don’t know where i am. it’s dark and blurry and my vision is barred and my heart is pounding straight into my chest cavity and i feel nothing. nothing! how can one feel nothing? i have no sense of sense. i’m lost. i’m lost between light and dark, the food and dirt, concrete and quicksand, shifts and the caps lock.

i’m lost and i need someone to find me (quick quick quick). but where will they look when “where” is nowhere?

the freezing tiles

I’m so fucked up, she says.

She, with the soft hair but hard eyes and the nimble fingers but stagnant heart, she lies down on the freezing tiles of her bathroom floor. And she just lays there: motionless, unresponsive, empty.

But the knock on the door and the shout behind it shakes her out of her stupor, and so she stands up on wobbly legs and gives the world the best damn smile she could ever offer. At the moment.

When she unlocks the door to the world unknown, what does make itself known to her are evils that lurk beneath the surface of the earth, the cracks in the pavement, the linings of the walls. And how they lurk; slithering into the pores of her skin, these evils lurk. The poison green oozes into her veins for her heart to accept, and this deadly new blood rushes into her arteries for her meek heart, her weak heart, to pump out to the rest of her functions. But this new blood is death and death kills. Her functions are no longer functional.

The invasion of her soul leaves her to be merely skin and bones and joints and clay. It leaves this girl full of such bacteria that do nothing to nourish her, but instead create a conglomerate of acids that push her to the edge.

No, she falters, but does not fall.

I’m so disgusting, she says.

She, with the soft hair but hard eyes and the nimble fingers but stagnant heart, she lies down on the freezing tiles of her bathroom floor. Arms tucked around her quivering frame, she holds the broken shards of her being together, no matter how many cuts and scrapes the glass makes on her skin.

For it is just skin, isn’t it?

She hasn’t ridden herself of the build-up in her torso because that is what normal people do. Normal people hang out with their friends, they listen to music, their paradise is found in the wide array of choices that malls offer. She wants to be normal, but the pull of her entity reminds her that she is alone, and the sounds she hear are of the misery of her own, and her refuge is found in the confines of a little white bathroom.

She feels the build-up building.

I’m sick of this and sick of me, she says.

She, with the soft hair but hard eyes and the nimble fingers but stagnant heart, she lies down on the freezing tiles of her bathroom. Hands balled up to the apples of her cheeks underneath steady falls that taste like salt, she sobs into hard knuckles and soft skin.

Feelings brim to the top of her façade and overflow in the form of tears, but the expulsion is not enough. There it still is; that feeling of self-loathing and guilt, of hatred and of silt that sink deep into the labyrinthine pathways of her heart.

Tears are not enough an expulsion to free her of the jail of emotion.

And so this girl crawls frantically to the porcelain to rid herself of everything that has built up in her life. But after time and time again, she knows this relief is only temporary.

But she can’t stop. Because if she feels at least a sliver of crisp air and clean seas before the guilt floods over her lightly landscape, she will never give up on that.

And so she lies back down on the freezing tiles of her bathroom floor, motionless, unresponsive, empty. And she says,

I’m so fucked up.